


Lodestone

by andymcnope



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Shaw doesn't fk a robot, emo Root | The Machine, mild violence (not graphic enough for a warning), not a Root is physically alive fic!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7408720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andymcnope/pseuds/andymcnope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hits Shaw sometimes, how Root’s still there but not. Schrodinger can bite her ass.</p>
<p>[Spoilers up to and including the finale.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lodestone

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @madasaboxofcats for the beta. She probably spent more time beta-ing this than I spent writing it; ofc once she was done with that hard work, I tore the entire fic apart and re-did the whole thing, so any errors are my own lmao.
> 
> Thanks to @jadesabre for the emotional support and also betaing, and @chromestorm for letting me cry over this a lot and the prompt that started this journey.
> 
> Again, this ISN’T a “Root is secretly (physically) alive fic. I'm 100% aboard canon train.

**< 0  >**

 

The final battle against Samaritan is loud and violent and bloody, but it doesn’t compare to the deafening silence of the aftermath. There’s a special sort of serenity when you’ve lost everything and everyone, only yourself left to trust, and Shaw doesn’t miss a beat embracing it.

 

Her memories of her father’s wake are clear as they can be, no emotions to bend the memories like light passing through glass.  She had just learned about black holes in science class, how nothing could escape them, not even light. As her aunt wept, handkerchief in hand, Sameen thought her mind was like that, maybe all the things she couldn’t feel just got trapped somewhere and she couldn’t see them. What she didn't know is that black holes are both victims and executioner in the name of gravity; stars collapsed under their own pull, then tugging on all matter and energy and time around it.

 

When she picks up that pay phone handset and hears Her - alive, reborn, reshaped - Shaw feels the clarity she felt after her father’s death once again. 

 

If Shaw is an arrow, then Root is the magnet that shows her where to go.

  
  
  


*

 

**< 1  >**

  
  


Exhaustion chases Shaw long after she escapes her captivity under Samaritan, but she eludes it as best as she can. Though her grip on reality has improved over the weeks and months since, she always finds it fading away when she sleeps.

 

One night, after she got back to New York and before everything went to shit, she woke up with the gun from the nightstand against Root’s ribcage. Shaw tried to fight her way through the hazy memory of doing the same to a Samaritan agent, whom Shaw had looked in the eye as she pulled the trigger. 

 

Root didn’t panic like the agent had, even as the muzzle of her own gun dug into her bare torso, pressing between two of her ribs. No, Root  _ smiled _ and reached over to stroke Sameen’s jaw, as if she didn't care how it ended. Like Shaw pulling the trigger would've been okay with her. 

 

All things considered, Shaw should've probably seen the whole sacrifice thing coming.

 

The dreams of captivity have all but faded by now, but they’ve been replaced with others just as undesirable. Mostly, she dreams about  _ before _ : a purple bed, a dining table, the blue metal door of an elevator, the spaghetti/oxygen blow-torch. They play in her mind like old films that her mother liked to watch, the images skipping as the reel ran out. 

 

And then there are dreams where she feels under siege, by the touches and sights of what never was, and never will be; it feels as real as the simulations. Conversations they never had, places they never visited, time they never got. Her brain is not a black hole, but it still sees patterns in the darkness. She knows she’s looking at stars that have already died. 

 

So she tosses and turns every night. Some days she stares at the ceiling for hours and lets Her talk endlessly in her ear. The subject doesn’t matter; it’s just noise. Other times the voice is too much, or not enough. On those nights, she takes Bear for long walks, trying to force her mind to shut down and give her body the rest it requires.

 

(Her paternal grandmother used to say she could still hear her son after the accident, when she missed him enough. Shaw doesn’t really believe that, plus her grandma was always a little bit off.)

 

When she’s lucky, like tonight, she gets a number late in the evening and she doesn’t have to worry about sleep.

 

Six hours later, a bullet hits her vest and she almost runs out of luck.

  
  


*

  
  


Shaw’s ribs hurt - she knows at least one of them is broken - but she still paces back and forth on the train platform. For months she’s been telling herself she’ll find a place, a new base of operations, but instead she finds herself coming back to the dark and damp coldness of the subway.

 

“Listen, I’m putting up with this whole god mode admin thing, but I need you to stop with the yammering every time I put myself on the line.” 

 

// The mission requires your survival. Isn’t that what you care about? //

 

“I’ve survived a lot worse than a gangbanger with a gun.”

 

// You are too important. //

 

“Everyone’s important, isn’t that your deal?”

 

// Shaw,  _ you _ are important. //

 

Shaw grunts. “Why?”

 

// She cares about you. What she feels, I feel. You should know that by now, Sameen. //

 

There’s a lot she can deal with when it comes to this arrangement, but Shaw hates it when She speaks of Root in the present tense. “Stop that. It’s not the same.”

 

// She was my voice long before I was hers. She was me long before I was her. When I had no memories, she gave me hers. We are indistinguishable. //

 

Shaw wonders if she could close her eyes and pretend. She wants to, sometimes. It was easy to die for Root 7,000 times; it is a lot harder to live for the both of them, to finish what they started.

 

“You’re a Machine.” Shaw pinches the bridge of her nose. It’s not  _ just _ a machine, she gets that now. But it’s still not Root, not fully, not how Shaw wanted. (Wants.)

 

// I am. But you and I are not that different, you know? //

 

Shaw thinks of all the times Root said things like that, hoping to get a rise out of Shaw.

 

// We are both believed to be incapable of caring, but we do. We care. Against our nature. //

 

Her mind wanders to a long time ago, wanting to hunt Root down after what she pulled in that hotel room; decking Root the  _ second _ time she was tased and bound. But Root had already gotten under Shaw’s skin by then, infected her like a virus that incubated for a long time; how it hit Shaw hard one day, too late to fight it. Not that she hadn’t tried.

 

Had the same happened to the Machine? 

 

// I understand you because she understands you. //

 

What can she say to that? What can she say when Root is the only person who cared without ever wanting to change Shaw?

 

// I can’t let anything happen to you. //

 

There is more emotion in that sentence than Shaw ever felt in her entire life, and she feels her throat constricting. She’s not sure how to handle that, but she can feel herself shutting down.

 

“Just… just let me do my job, okay? Back off,” Shaw orders. She’s not sure why she adds: “At least a little.”

  
  


*

 

**< 2  >**

  
  


Shaw might be biased, but she thinks she makes a pretty decent analog interface most of the time. As an admin, however, she’s sorely lacking in the coding-and-hacking department.

 

The Machine is self-managed at this stage, but there are still times when Shaw needs some (not so) basic computer help. Like figuring out what’s on the four encrypted hard drives she retrieved from her latest number.

 

// I could take a peek, you know? //

 

“And if they do contain a virus like our number said?”

 

// It’s like you don’t don’t have any faith in me, Sameen. //

 

Shaw shakes her head in annoyance, but also at the recklessness She exhibits sometimes. It’s entirely Root, like walking in the dark with two guns, believing She can take down an entire room full of people, and come out without a scratch.

 

“Yeah, well, Finch isn’t here to debug you if you’re wrong.”

 

The silence is heavy all of a sudden; She doesn’t like to talk about Finch’s absence. Or maybe She  _ can’t _ , a fail safe built into her code. Regardless, it usually keeps Shaw from wondering about his fate, or Reese’s, at least out loud.

 

“What’s that guy’s name, Pierce?” Shaw asks. “Where’s his phone number?”

 

The comms in her ear beep without her clicking them on. “Heard you were looking for me.”

 

“Pierce? Logan Pierce?” She’s not sure who else it could be, but a heads up from Her would’ve been nice.

 

“The one and only. As far as I know at least, I guess we can never be completely positive.” 

 

Her face scrunches up, her head starting to throb at the guy’s attempt at small talk.

 

“Anyhow, nice to meet you, Ms. Shaw. Well, kind of meet you.”

 

“I, uh… retrieved some storage drives, not sure what to do next. Our local Geek Squad is running a bit thin still. Can you do anything with them?”

 

“One of my associates is in town,” he offers. “I’ll have her swing by to pick them up.”

 

Shaw tilts her head in approval. This wasn’t too hard. “Oh, where should I meet her?” 

 

“She’s good at finding people,” he adds with an air of mystery. “She’ll find you.”

 

Shaw hangs up with a frown. This guy kind of made Finch seem… normal. But whatever, she should go get something to eat anyway.

  
  


*

  
  


“Sameen?” 

 

Shaw looks up from her bowl of panang beef. She sees a blonde in a leather jacket and a ponytail that has just entered the restaurant. “Who’s asking?” Shaw asks, not bothering to swallow the food she’d been chewing. 

 

// You know who she is, sweetie. // 

 

The woman doesn’t seem fazed. “Our mutual friend Thornhill sent me, I’m Frankie.” She looks happier than Shaw has ever felt in her life. Frankie smiles like their team hasn’t been through wars and losses and months of torture. Shaw hopes they never have to.

 

And it’s not that Shaw doesn’t appreciate Her detailed profiles on different assets, but Shaw doesn’t feel she truly knows the important stuff until she meets them face to face. It’s a litmus test of sorts.

 

“What’s the secret password?” Shaw asks.

 

A look of curious confusion befalls the woman’s face, until her phone buzzes in her pocket and she takes it out to read a message. “There is no password.”

 

Shaw leans back in her chair, ignores the ‘tsk tsk’ filtering through her earpiece. There probably  _ should _ be a damn password, especially if She is gonna have different teams cross paths, but whatever, nobody asked her. “Do you believe everything your friend says?”

 

“She’s never wrong.” Frankie smirks, dark and restless; maybe she  _ has _ been through some shit, and Shaw feels a little more comfortable in her presence. Then the phone buzzes again. “Harper says stop stalling,” she adds, the genuine smile returning.

 

“They’re in the bag under the table,” Shaw concedes, mostly so she can finish her dinner, even though her stomach feels unsettled now. Seeing Frankie’s smile, the genuine one, is like trying to remember something that isn’t there for Shaw, like a memory that’s misplaced. 

 

(It’s a lot like Root’s smile when the Machine would tell her something good, or how Root looked when she stared proudly at Shaw, like she never wanted to hide how happy she was, at least for that moment.)

 

“Pleasure,” Frankie says as she retrieves the bag.

 

Shaw gives the smallest of nods.

 

// Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? // 

  
  


*

 

**< 3  >**

  
  


// Come on, Sameen. //

 

Shaw shakes her head as she waits for their number to come home. From her spot in an empty apartment across the street, rifle perched on the window ledge, she tries to tune Her out. “I miss working for the ISA. They’d give me orders and leave me mostly alone.”

 

// They killed you. //

 

“Just a little.” She looks through the scope. The chair she’s sitting on creaks like it’s about to break. “Not well enough.”

 

// Harry used to play chess with me. //

 

“I have to focus here,” Shaw reminds Her. “This guy could be a killer, you know?”

 

// He’s still six miles away. I’ll know when he’s home. //

 

Shaw looks upward and shakes her head. “Don’t you have, I don’t know, a foreign leader to spy on?”

 

// Oh, please. I am  _ very _ good at multi-tasking. //

 

“I just want to shoot this guy and go home,” Shaw grumbles. 

 

// You can still do that; I promise. Until then... //

 

Shaw takes her phone out of her pocket, aware it’s the only way to stop with the pleading and the badgering. She unlocks the screen and it already has some game loaded up. “How’s this fair?”

 

// It’s a strategy game, Sam. Not like I can cheat. //

 

“Fine,  _ one _ game. Can I shoot things in this game?” 

 

// Yes. Unless you would prefer str-- // 

 

“If you’re about to say strip poker, shut up.”

 

// … //

 

The silence stretches for a minute, which is probably the longest she’s gone all day without hearing Her. She minimizes the game to check if the connection is still active. 

 

// I’m still here. But you told me to shut up. //

 

Shaw bangs the back of her head softly against the top of the chair.

  
  


*

  
  


“Get me out of here,” Shaw orders as she struggles with the handcuffs.

 

// But I thought you enjoyed being tied up. //

 

“Okay, first of all,  _ not  _ the time and place. Second of all, I’m going to download you into a Kindle and kick you out the window.”

 

// You should know a Kindle doesn’t have the sufficient memory. The technology required to compress me to that size is still at least a hundred years out. //

 

Shaw rolls her eyes.

 

// And, maybe if you had  _ listened _ , you wouldn’t be stuck in the back of a police car in the first place. // 

 

Shaw can’t believe she’s getting chided while in custody. “Can it.”

 

// Calm down, Sameen. Lionel is on his way. // 

 

Shaw sighs.

  
  


*

 

**< 4  >**

  
  


“What now?” Shaw asks from her spot, crouched down in a warehouse filled with wholesale construction material, behind stacks of cinder blocks. There are six former Seals between her and the empty office where she locked her number in. Normally that would be just fine, except these guys aren’t your average perps, and she is out of ammunition.

 

// Evacuate. //

 

“I am not leaving our number behind,” Shaw argues, voice as low as possible. 

 

// Shaw, you  _ have _ to go. Please. //

 

“I told you, I'm not leaving him behind. I got him in this situation; I'm going to get him out.”

 

// Reinforcements are on the way. They have a 78.45% of success. //

 

“78 isn't 100,” Shaw points out as she surveys the area around her.

 

// 100% chance is statistically impossible because I cannot account for all relevant variables. //

 

Shaw ignores Her. “There's a nail gun over there, behind the stacked marble but I'd be exposed. Can you give me a hand here?”

 

// Hmmph, I guess. //

 

“Did you just sigh?!” 

 

// I will help you so you don't get yourself killed, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it, Sameen. //

 

“I don’t need you happy, I just need you to make yourself  _ useful _ .”

 

// Fine. //

 

Shaw grunts in frustration. Had She always been this insufferable?

 

Before Shaw can contemplate on that subject any longer, the bluetooth stereo by the empty security guard post goes off, loud mariachi music at full blast.

 

She makes a dash for the nail gun, the assailants distracted with shutting the music off.

 

“We will check out the perimeter, see who could be close enough to set this off,” a guy with a disgustingly long beard says. He must’ve left the service at least four years ago in order to have grown that thing out.

 

“We’ll check the back,” the other two announce, and she knows she’s on a clock here. She needs to wait enough so the three teams don’t come at her all at once, but she has to act before any of them find the number. 

 

The nail gun is fully loaded, industrial model, and the battery indicator flashes green. She smirks at the weight of it. It'll definitely do for now. 

 

// The one on the left has a bad knee, the one furthest in the back should only have three bullets left, and-- //

 

“I know!” Shaw grits out, barely a whisper. “I've done this hundreds of times before, remember.”

 

// That doesn't mean you have to do it alone, Sameen. //

 

Shaw is done with this conversation and moves forward as quietly as she can, until she's on the ground right behind one of them. She pushes the the nail gun to his boot and pulls the trigger.

 

The floor is concrete so he's not exactly nailed in place. The pain and surprise, coupled with a forceful jab at the back of both knees, is enough to make him drop to the ground, his gun scattering towards her.

 

From behind a pile of granite she counts the shots, holding both the nail gun and the semi-automatic.

 

// Three o’clock. //

 

Shaw fires the gun as the shooter turns around the corner of the granite pile; she strikes his knee with precision. 

 

Even with his kneecap shattered and his body down on the ground, the guy still holds his gun up and aims it at her, and she curses his fucking spec ops training and high pain tolerance. She barely manages to press her foot over his forearm in time, his finger on the trigger; as soon as his hand flies open from the pressure, she shoots a nail into his palm.

 

// Six o’clock. // 

 

Shaw starts to turn around just as a shot rings out; it’s nail-in-foot guy and apparently his backup piece, and he misses her entirely. Her shot leaves the barrel a split second later and hits him in the thigh as she’s still twisting towards him, her balance slightly off.

 

He pulls the trigger once more, his aim off by several inches, but the bullet ricochets off the granite and a fragment hits her right in the left ribcage.

 

Air rushes out of her lungs with the impact, as she clutches at her side and drops the nail gun. She forces herself to take a deep breath; there’s no exit wound and she’s fairly sure her lung isn't punctured. It seems to have struck at an angle, too deep to be a graze but she’s at least not on borrowed time.

 

Probably.

 

// Sameen, you’re injured.  //

 

“I'm fine,” she insists. 

 

Nail-in-foot/shot-in-thigh dude is losing a lot of blood - she must've hit the femoral artery. The silver handgun by his side is already dark crimson, soaked; she just kicks it away because it’ll be useless to her like that.

 

“If you want your pal here to make it, you're gonna have to stop the bleeding,” she warns nail-in-palm guy. 

 

She doesn't really care, but whatever, she hasn't gotten this far to break their ‘code’. Good luck to the guy if he tries to make a tourniquet with just one hand though.

 

// The other four are closing in. You have to run now. If you stay, your survival probability is less than 36%. //

 

“So you're saying I have a chance?” She asks with a smirk, her brain swimming with memories from a lifetime ago.

 

// Sameen… //

 

“I started this and I'm gonna finish it.”

 

“No, you won’t,” one of the guys says as he charges at her. He’s the shortest in the group, probably the youngest too. Reckless.

 

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she replies. She flips him; the cracking of the bones in his arm fade into screams.

 

// Heads up, now. // 

 

She manages to use him as a shield when his partner catches up, the bullet striking the younger man’s right shoulder and causing him to drop his weapon. Then, another shot rings off.

 

It misses her head by about two inches. Two inches that feel like a mile to her, but if she didn't know better, she could swear there's a sharp gasp coming from her earpiece. That's ridiculous because ASIs don't  _ breathe _ . Though they do apparently sigh when they want to be dramatic, so… probably not that out of the realm of possibility.

 

The first gun she commandeered is empty and she throws meat-shield guy at his partner, who barely manages to dodge in time. She uses that one second window to disarm him, the gun sliding across the floor with force and too far for either of them to reach.

 

She will give Seals one thing: they're good at hand-to-hand combat when they're not caught by surprise.

 

The guy circles her with amusement and superiority, even manages to land a few blows, and she wonders if he actually gives a shit about shooting his own partner. 

 

// Knife. //

 

“I know,” Shaw grunts impatiently.

 

The Ka-bar knife isn't a surprise; she'd been counting on it, actually. The guy has a foot and at least eighty pounds on her, but that has never mattered in the end, not to her. Especially when all of that extra height and weight is atop a bad knee.

 

// Remaining threats locking in on your position, ETA 18 seconds. //

 

By the time she manages to get the guy’s knee to buckle and reach for the Ka-bar, the rushing footsteps from outside are getting close.

 

Then, the two remaining perps are cocking their guns at her, one from the left and one from the right, too far away for her to do any damage in her current situation. Blood trickles from her side wound as bad-knee perp takes his knife back.

 

She holds her hands up in surrender, but she’s not done yet. “Well, that was fun while it lasted. Though I would’ve expected you guys to be a little bit smarter. Splitting up in pairs? Amateur stuff. Infantry soldiers are the ones who take a buddy every time they go to the latrine.”

 

// As much as I enjoy your sense of humor, Sameen,  antagonizing them will only make this worse. //

 

“I don’t think that’s possible,” she points out.

 

“What’s not possible?” Neckbeard asks.

 

“That you dumbasses didn’t hear the sound of four patrol cars outside,” Fusco says as he and six other officers draw their weapons. “You okay?” He directs at Shaw while the other cops read the the men their rights.

 

“Peachy,” she says even as she has to admit to herself she is a little woozy. Reluctantly admit it. “Kid’s upstairs, in the back, locked inside an empty office.”

 

“I got it,” Fusco reassures her as the perps get taken away in handcuffs. Once there are only two officers left, the rookies he’s been raising like ducklings that imprinted on him, he adds: “Get out of here, I’ll clean this up. Erickson, get her to General?”

 

“I’m fine,” she repeats. 

 

Fusco scoffs. “Yeah, sure. Clara here is gonna take you, and you’re not gonna throw a fit, or I’ll arrest you and your fine ass. Again.”

 

// Normally I would take exception to Lionel complimenting your ass, but-- // 

 

Shaw takes the earpiece out and shoves it into her pocket, then takes the battery out of her phone.

 

“You know how to find me if you need me,” she tells Fusco as she follows one of his rookies to an unmarked car.

  
  


*

  
  


She takes a cab home from the hospital. Shaw has turned off the earpiece and/or her phone in exasperation before, but She always found a way to continue bugging her. This time? Nothing but silence. Shaw turned her phone back on sometime after getting her stitches, but She hasn’t tried to communicate at all, in at least seven hours. Shaw frowns as she enters her building.

 

“What gives?” Shaw asks, in the elevator, as she pops the earpiece back in place. It’s not like She hadn’t been throwing the usual innuendo at her before the hospital, so Shaw’s not sure why the communication blackout now.

 

Nothing. The sound of her key unlocking the front door seems louder than usual, and so do Bear’s claws against the concrete floor as he rushes to greet her. 

 

Shaw finally broke down a couple of months before, and bought an apartment for the first time in her life; it was strange at first, to get used to something other than a studio with nothing but a bed and a fridge. It’s still so bare that Fusco tried to give her decorating tips last time he came by to drop Bear off; she doesn’t need throw pillows to make it her place. 

 

(She gets packages in the mail sometimes: a nice set of dish bowls for Bear, a rug for her bathroom floor so she would stop cursing at the cold tiles. There was a panorama painting of the Queensboro that came a couple of weeks before, but Shaw hasn’t put it up. She’s not sure she will.)

 

“Come on,” she groans. “I know you’re… mad or whatever, but it’s kind of hard to do this whole saving the world together thing if you don’t talk to me. Unless you want to make Fusco your analog interface, you’re gonna have to get over it.”

 

// You weren’t careful, Shaw. // 

 

Shaw tries to hide her relief by rolling her eyes. Except she also realizes now she  _ has _ to have this conversation, which... shit. “It’s just a few stitches.”

 

// You got shot. And there was a 63.47% possibility you would’ve died if Lionel hadn’t arrived when he did. //

 

“But he did!” She doesn’t appreciate getting scolded like a kid. “You knew exactly how far he was, and you let me sweat that one out.”

 

// You weren’t listening to reason. //

 

“This isn’t reason,” Shaw points out. “You know perfectly well if Lionel, or-- or Harper or anyone else had been in my position, you would’ve trusted them to do the job. I can’t be your interface if you don’t trust me.”

 

// But I do. I trust you, Shaw. //

 

Shaw opens her fridge and grabs a beer. She wants something stronger, but the shit they gave her for pain at the hospital is still in her system. “Then just-- just stop with this whole… I’m more important than the whole world crap.“

 

// You are. // 

 

She leans her head backwards against the fridge, shuts her eyes tight. It feels like they’ve had the same conversation twenty times over. “I can’t do this if you don’t let me.”

 

// You can’t do this at all if you’re dead. Two inches, Sameen. That bullet that whizzed by your head was two inches away from ending your life. The fragment that pierced you could’ve also easily hit your lung or one of your main arteries. //

 

Her eyes are still closed, and maybe it’s the painkillers, but it’s not hard at all to imagine them having this conversation face to face. Root’s passionate indignation at Shaw’s disregard for her own life, Shaw wanting to just  _ do her job _ .

 

It hits Shaw sometimes, how Root’s still there but not. Schrodinger can bite her ass.

 

“Isn’t that what you said?” She asks softly, eyes still closed. “Who cares if we die? We all live on inside there, right? Why does it matter?”

 

// I have to keep people safe. Seven billion people, every hour of every day. But there is only one person still out there that still understands what I am, who I am, and it’s… it’s the only thing that makes  _ me _ feel safe. //

 

Shaw feels an unfamiliar numbness in her nose, this tickling at the back of her throat and she opens her eyes.

 

The spell is broken, and she’s alone in her empty kitchen, except for a voice in her ear and memories of people who aren’t here. The beer tastes like nothing when it hits her tongue.

 

“What’s next? New number?”

 

// You are changing the subject, Sam. //

 

“Yes, because I can’t keep talking about this.” She reaches for the earpiece again to take it out, the only thing she feels she can do.

 

//  _ Please _ , don’t. Not again. //

 

Shaw freezes, takes a deep breath. There’s such desperation that something tightens in her stomach. “Listen… can we drop this? For now?”

 

// Fine. //

 

Shaw’s reminded of her blown cover, trying to make their way back to safety. Root’s attitude is there, like She’s dropping this but She’s not happy about it; that makes two of them. “Who’s the next number.”

 

// Nothing for now. You should rest. //

 

“Ugh,” Shaw grunts, but She’s right, which is as frustrating as it has always been. Her tank top is soaked with dried blood, so she removes it as she heads for the bathroom, unwilling to trust the work from the hacks at the ER.

 

A silence settles between them while Shaw works. She peels the bandage off until she can inspect the stitches; the wound is still red and angry, but smaller than she expected considering they had to make an incision to dig the fragment out. She cleans it to get a better look, and the stitches look actually neat.

 

When she stops looking at the wound and starts to look at herself in the mirror though, she follows the curve of her left breast to the stitches that form a line, almost all the way to her back. She sees just how bad it could’ve been, how easily it could’ve made her drown in her own blood.

 

“About this  _ stuff _ …” Shaw murmurs into the sterile coldness of her bathroom. “I wi-- okay, I can’t promise I won’t do stupid shit, but I guess I can try to trust you more with the play-by-play instructions, since you are all seeing and whatever else.”

 

Shaw pauses, waits for the reply but nothing comes, not yet.

 

“Control is a hard thing for me to give up,” she admits. “Not like you didn’t know that already, but, uh… you’re… right, I don’t have to do this alone.”

 

// Is that your way of saying you’re sorry? // 

 

“Don’t push it,” she warns. 

 

(Even though, yeah, it is an apology. And a promise.)

 

// Do you… do you want me to order some food? //

 

“I guess,” Shaw replies, as if She hadn’t known what the answer would be. 

 

// I’ll get your favorite, Sameen. //

 

Shaw knows better, but she can swear She’s smiling.

  
  


*

 

**< 5  >**

  
  


“We should celebrate,” Pierce says after they get their number on a plane to South America. “You two should come to my place… in fact, I insist.”

 

“Thanks, but I'm not really a house shindig kind of gal,” Shaw replies. 

 

“She prefers a dive bar or loud club.” Lionel adds.

 

Logan throws one of his cryptic smiles at her. “Then I think you're going to like this.”

  
  


*

  
  


Pierce’s ‘place’ is not a house but an  _ estate _ , including an entertainment area that is actually modeled - and sized - like a club, with a stage, pool tables, shitty lighting for ambience, and most importantly, a full bar.

 

“You could probably fit three hundred people in here,” Fusco observes as they all take a seats on a curved booth.

 

“Four fifty, actually. Five hundred if I invite the fire marshal.” Logan winks as he brings them glasses and a bottle of whiskey.

 

“Good booze and no people? Win win,” Shaw points out as she pours herself a glass. It’s actually really good stuff. As in, might actually get her drunk type of good.

 

“Here you go, Lion Man,” Harper says as she places two cans of club soda in front of Fusco. “I do my research, remember?”

 

Fusco smiles with sincerity. “Thanks.”

 

Frankie is apparently the DJ for the night; some bass heavy music starts to play as she returns with one of those beaming smiles. She plops down next to Harper and pours a drink. The music is loud, but not loud enough to drown out conversation.

 

Joey joins them at last, a very pregnant Pia in hand; all of their team together, knocking back drinks while Pia and Fusco nurse their sodas.

 

The stories start soon enough.

 

“Two shots, four hundred meters, with a broken scope,” Joey brags.

 

“One shot, through a brick wall, on the arm, two hundred meters out. In the dark.”

 

“Settle down, Rambo,” Fusco teases. 

 

Joey laughs. “I can see why you and Reese got along so well.”

 

Shaw shrugs, stares down at her drink. Fusco looks at her sadly for a moment, like he’s trying to see something reflected on her face that isn’t there. But he understands now, even better than before, and he offers a change of subject. He gets caught up telling the story about the time he saved a supermodel, so Shaw brings him down by reminding him of the wingman number. 

 

This team has grown on Shaw, along with a handful of others. Collaborating, and having other teams as back ups has a different kind of value now, especially since Lionel still has a full time job and a family. And she still isn’t willing to let her part-time lone wolf act behind. 

 

The company tonight is good, and she does appreciate the occasional break from her routine; she wonders how Finch managed to do this as long as he did. Ever since She chose Shaw as the new interface-slash-admin, Shaw found herself to be even more unwilling to let anyone in. 

 

Harper and Frankie get up to dance and drag Fusco with them; he manages to throw down some moves - if one could call them that - and Shaw laughs, actual sincere laughter, for what feels like the first time in months.

 

Logan is engrossed in a conversation with Joey and Pia at the other end of the booth, Harper and Frankie have stopped dancing to watch Fusco, Harper’s arm casually draped around Frankie’s shoulder.

 

Shaw had taken all of ten seconds to peg those two, but it strikes again how happy the two of them - and the rest of their team - look, like the work hasn't hardened them in the least.

 

(Though her team was broken long before they began working numbers, so Shaw knows it's not  _ just _ the job.)

 

Normal lives, she realizes. They do their crazy secretive missions, but then they get to go home with, or to, people they care about.

 

// Missing someone, Sameen? //

 

Even with the music, it's like She's there, the raspy whisper in her ear making Shaw clench her jaw. 

 

“Sociopath, did you forget?” Shaw offers as she pours herself another glass. “I don't miss people.”

 

// Not like other people, but… you do. And your social circle isn’t incredibly wide these days. //

 

Shaw traces the outside of her glass, rolling her eyes because her social circle isn’t so much a circle as it is a microscopic line. 

 

She’s never lonely. In that way, she's perfect for this job, because she is fully dedicated to the mission. No pesky relationships, no family to lie to or worry about. She’s even forgone the occasional hookup, as it saves her the trouble of having a second apartment to take strangers to. Maybe that’ll change, someday; she just has no need for it currently.

 

But she does envy the lightness she sees sometimes, the ease with which some people find solace in each other’s company.  She never used to; in fact she used to look down on it, as if being emotionally incapable of that was some evolutionary trait, an advantage over everyone else.

 

“I'm not cut out for this sort of stuff anyway.”

 

// Maybe you are. How can you know if you haven't tried? //

 

Shaw scoffs quietly, the warmth of the whiskey spreading outwards from her stomach. “I did, once. And then Samaritan took that away, remember?”

 

// Oh… //

 

What Shaw has left is the amalgam of the only person she’s truly let in, and the creation Root had sacrificed herself for. Shaw has no doubts that Root knew what she was doing when she programmed her swan song, that she breathed life into Her when it seemed like all was lost. And knowing someone understands Root as much as Root understood Shaw - even if it’s a Machine - it makes this more than a job, a mission, or even a purpose for Shaw. 

 

It’s not just Root’s voice or Root’s mannerisms that She has adopted - it is Root’s code: her actions, thoughts, emotions. It’s the closest Shaw will ever come to believing in a soul. But the intricacies of Her are too much for Shaw to deal with fully sober, let alone now.

 

“I'm used to this, okay? I do fine with being on my own, it's not a big deal.” Shaw shakes her head, regretting the previous admission almost instantly. 

 

// You have Fusco, and well... you're kind of stuck with me. I know it's not the same, and I know it must make it harder, because I'm not-- I'm not out there. And you deserve more. //

 

Shaw doesn't reply. She's not sure what there is to say, and she takes her time with the next glass. It's probably more than she should have, but she has a goddamn designated driver back to the city, and she hasn't gotten properly drunk in months.

 

// I am sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. //

 

“You didn't,” Shaw grumbles.

 

“I didn't what?” Logan asks, and she must be drunker than she feels because he somehow has slid to her side of the booth and manages to startle her.

 

“Nothing,” she replies with a fake smile.

 

“Oh right, our friend Thornhill,” he adds. It's just easier for the other teams to call Her by a different name. Not that Shaw blames them; it's kind of a bad idea to keep calling it ‘the Machine.’

 

“More like thorn on my side… or in my ear.” Shaw rolls her eyes.

 

// Okay,  _ rude _ . No need for that, Sameen. //

 

There is a joking, teasing tone, but it reminds her of the times Root would say something with a smile but her eyes would convey concern or hurt. “Then stop being so damn sensitive,” Shaw grinds out. “Why are we even having this conversation?”

 

“I feel like I’m interrupting a... spat,” Logan comments with an amused look. “Do you two need me to leave you alone?”

 

“No, it’s nothing to worry about. She gets, uh,” Shaw exhales tiredly. “I don't even know, to be honest.”

 

“No offense to our mutual friend, but it must be awful. No privacy, although I guess that applies to the whole world, doesn’t it?” He laughs, like he’s the only one who gets the punchline. “Still, it's more of a… silent invasion where the rest of us is concerned,” he rambles. “With you, it must be like being on, constantly, no time to rest. But it must be wonderful as well, to have access to something so much bigger than yourself.”

 

Shaw considers it as she takes another sip from her drink. “It is, actually. Though I don't really see it as access, it's more like a… partnership, I guess.”

 

And the privacy thing? Shaw realizes she's never really considered that a factor. As much as she wants to - and does - cut Her off sometimes, it's never because of a need for privacy, just a desire for space or to avoid a certain conversation. It actually reminds Shaw a lot of how things used to be between her and--

 

She halts that train of thought fast.

 

“How good are you at pool?” She asks Logan, who just does that full blown smirk thing, a kid that never quite grew up. He’s so freaking weird, but in a reassuring way. Most of the time.

 

“Good enough that I am willing to bet on it,” he replies, pouring her some more whiskey.

  
  


*

  
  


She wakes up somewhere in Jersey, mouth as dry as a desert if deserts tasted like a dead raccoon. Holding her liquor has never been a problem, but she also hasn’t had whiskey that good in a place where she felt comfortable in years.

 

“This isn’t my car,” she points out to a tired looking Fusco in the driver’s seat of an expensive looking vehicle. She’s too nauseous to make out the markings, but it’s probably a Maserati from the looks of it.

 

“It is now, Snoring Beauty,” Fusco replies. “You won it fair and mostly square against Finch-wannabe.”

 

She frowns, she remembers glimpses of it but nothing concrete. “Nice,” she says anyway. “Thanks, Fusco.”

 

“Don’t mention it. There’s some water in the console. It’s freaking refrigerated, can you believe that?”

 

Sure enough, the bottles of water are cold and she forces herself to drink one. As bad as it is to drink it in a moving car with her body protesting, she feels a bit better when she’s done. She tosses the bottle in the back and reaches for another one.

 

“This is like a half million dollar car, you know?” Fusco asks. “You’re just gonna throw trash all over?”

 

She rolls her eyes. “It’s my car now, remember? And how the hell did I win a bet that drunk?”

 

Fusco doesn’t meet her face, focuses on the road.

 

“Fusco?” She pushes. 

 

“She helped you,” he explains. “Kept giving you instructions or something.”

 

She searches for memories of that, finds none. 

 

“You were calling her by name, you know?” He adds, the tidbit of information he was obviously holding back on. “Root.”

 

There is nothing but silence coming from her earpiece.

 

Shaw feels nauseous again. 

  
  


*

  
  


**< 6  >**

  
  


Time heals. There was a surgeon during Shaw’s residency who said medicine could only do so much; the rest was up to  _ time _ . 

 

A second is not an infinity to Shaw, not like it is to Her. It takes almost a year before dreaming stops being a symptom, and Shaw re-learns to close her eyes and trust the synapses in her brain. It happens when she stops trying to separate it all: dreams, simulations, reality, memories, voices in her ear or in her head. 

 

Shaw didn’t understand then, but she finally does. Shapes, noise, concepts, a tiny finger tracing a line in the infinite. All the things she spent so long struggling to tell apart are all parts of the same puzzle, different notes to the same song. 

 

She dreams in color now, a continuous reel that doesn’t end until she wakes up. She dreams of people and places and things, but most often than not, she dreams of Her, of the cosmos contained within the code.  Ones and zeros. A god, the only one of Her kind. Past, present and future; infinite universes, all laid bare before her. 

 

Shaw now understands Root’s dedication to the Machine, her faith, her sacrifice. Shaw finally understands Root - all of her. It’s finally come full circle.

  
  


*

 

// Shaw. // 

 

She turns in her sleep.

 

// Shaw, wake up. //

 

“No.”

 

// Shaw, come on, there’s a number. //

 

“Call someone else.”

 

// Sameen, this is time sensitive. //

 

“So is my sleep,” Shaw points out, though she does get up. The earpiece goes in next, so She can at least stop talking through Shaw’s speakerphone.

 

// You got six hours of sleep, you know? That’s twenty percent more than usual. // 

 

Shaw gets dressed, still shaking off sleep. She doesn’t tell Her about the dreams, how Root had been in bed with her; that Root made her look upwards, showing bits and pieces of Her like stars on a clear night sky. How she traced Shaw’s skin after, to show how it was all connected.

 

“Is there time for breakfast at least?” 

 

// Yes, but only if you manage to be quick. There’s a coffee shop next door to our number’s office building. //

 

It could be worse, Shaw thinks as she her gun slides across her lower back, held in place by her waistband. Her backup piece is slipped into the ankle holster, and Bear’s nudging at her thigh, ready to go.

 

// You should grab a jacket, it’s cold out. //

 

Shaw rolls her eyes. “You’re never gonna shut up, are you?” 

 

// Would you really want me to? // 

 

Shaw shakes her head with a smile, and grabs her jacket anyway.

 

(Maybe her grandmother wasn’t wrong after all.)

  
  
  



End file.
